Constellation

Flexing my muscles.

2012-02-23T17:18:00.000Z

All very exciting suddenly, we've been given a short brief to get back into tech and I'm loving it.
Yesterday we learnt to select online data via php scripting, and today my master plan to reveal this data through tech is becoming real.

I borrowed some nickel titanium alloy wire (codename 'Muscle Wire'!) or nitinol, which is an SMA (shape memory alloy) and is pre-set to contract about 10% of its original length when heated.
Above is my circuit, (diagram to follow) when around 3v is passed through the wire it contracts, and then springs return it to it's former length when the voltage is turned off.

Great stuff, and a detailed master plan to follow when I've purchased some musical reeds...

Available now!

2012-02-21T15:50:00.000Z

Available now on eBay!!
http://bit.ly/ztPCfC

Never get lost again with these quirky compasses, which can be worn as a badge/ brooch, or simply popped into your blazer pocket! Fantastic as gifts too!
Available in four colour combinations (more coming soon) and made from strong acrylic.

The components are functional mini plotting compasses, but are only intended for fun. I take no responsibility for any incorrect headings given!
If you've got a question please don't hesitate to get in touch, I also take on commissions so if you've got a design in mind then just ask.

Back to Digital.

2012-02-21T15:43:00.000Z

Well we've just about finished our India project, and we're diving straight back into digital tomfoolery.
Monday was the start of a week-long project to get us back into the digital frame of mind. This is going to inform where we want to proceed this semester and for our internships this summer.
I have been looking at data sets which I want to visualize and physicalize in the next week.
However, to start the ball rolling so to speak, I have been getting to grips with ATtiny's. Above is a photo of my homemade bootloader for loading code onto an ATtiny via an Arduino Duemilanove.

Simple, easy to make circuit shematic here: http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1706

This means I can start to make tichy tiny digital things with the added ease of using arduino programming environment.

Tommorows task: php into arduino!

What I want to be when I grow up...

2012-02-08T21:54:00.000Z

A quick task we were asked to do this week, what do I want to be when I grow up?
Well I've always had a secret dream of working in the BBC Radio 4 radiophonic workshop, writing comedy and drama.
But for now, to earn enough money to live and still enjoy what I do, I want to be the above designer...

Go on gi'es a job!

Two days left in India

2012-01-28T09:53:00.000Z

Well it has been a fantastic two weeks in India, (updates to follow when I finally get back to my laptop!). For the meanwhile you can check out what we've been up to here http://productdesign.dundee.ac.uk/msc

Update:

Todesign is to plan.

Wehave been privileged enough to be welcomed into a bold and industriouscommunity in a nation with a wealth of heritage and forward thinking.

Thereis no doubt that we have met our aims in discovering and synthesising insightsinto mobile technologies and the internet in India, but there is so much moreto learn. There is a definite richness to Indian culture which must beexperienced to be understood, and only by spending time within it can we refineand resolve well-suited services and products.

Ourresearch activity in Ahmedabad has certainly been an insightful journey. Havingthe chance to study the culture, people and environment in relation to mobileuse and the internet has allowed us all to learn vast amounts. We now have an appreciationand understanding of how people access and interact with services in India, andwhere this can lead in terms of bringing increased automation with atraditional twist.

Theinsights and ideas that have been developed over the 2 week period will feeddirectly into the products, services and interactions that NCR develop.

As aprocess it has shown that in order to really learn how to design products andinteractions for new markets it needs teams on the ground – researchers andinvestigators engaging with real people in the right context.

Therehave been a range of different insight gathering methods used fromquestionnaires to Video Insights. A key component to the research was theengagement with the NID students. This ensured the insights were rich andcorrect and the ideas were co-designed and relevant.
The relationshipsformed between NCR and NID during our time here is something that will continueto grow. It is significant that both groups are open to an industry/educationalcollaboration and understand the mutual benefits.

Wehave an ambitious vision for cooperation between the UK and India as dynamic,balanced, competitive and growing economies, driven by business and technologybased products and services.

Thisincludes continued support for curiosity-driven research across a broad rangeof disciplines, with a focus on supporting excellent research and excellentuniversities.
For usas we progress through the Masters of product design programme, the MobileInsights activity continues. All the knowledge we have gathered will feed intothe projects we embark upon next, aiding our development as professionaldesigners, technologists, and researchers.

Hello Ahmedabad!

2012-01-18T15:27:00.002Z

Well after a 22 hour journey, four of us are in beautiful India!
We have had an amazing first day, with an introduction to the product design students and staff at NID. We were thrown in at the deep-end with an auto-rickshaw ride to the old town of Ahmedabad, and given a fantastic tour of temples, cultural sectors, and markets, and treated to a divine meal for lunch.
All in all a fantastic start to this research trip.

Follow us on twitter #mscpd #productdundee

Mobile Internet in India.

2012-01-12T18:06:00.001Z

India has an opportunity to lead the world once again by becoming the first truly mobile digital society. All the elements are in place: the cost of network access and handsets is going down, wireless networks are going up, and Indian consumers already display an insatiable appetite for digital services. In addition, bypassing the personal computer—moving straight to widespread mobile access—simply makes sense. It would sidestep a host of hurdles associated with delivering affordable Internet services to a population that is geographically dispersed and relatively poor, in a country where infrastructure development can be problematic.

We are going to India next week to investigate whether the infrastruacture is there to propagte this explosion in mobile internet usage in the country.

http://www.iamai.in/PCov_Detail.aspx?nid=2437&NMonth=1&NYear=2012

http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/in.htm

http://www.pluggd.in/mobile-internet-users-in-india-297/

http://csi.mckinsey.com/Knowledge_by_region/Asia/India/Indiamobile.aspx

Two weeks, two days.

2011-12-30T17:40:00.001Z

India in less than three weeks!!! I can't wait, although the visa is still yet to arrive I'm getting very excited.
We are going to the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, north western India. We'll be taking arduinos aplenty, and hopefully learning a great deal from the students, practitioners, and researchers there.
Also the country will be astounding, the food divine, and I hear the weather is coolish (for India!).

So it's off to the chemist for some suncream and mosquito repellent!

You're still invited.

2011-12-12T21:56:00.002Z

Just finished editing an experience video for the invitation, and this will probably be the last blog entry before we present tomorrow morning!

Looking Good.

2011-12-11T21:43:00.001Z

The external and internals of the invitation are looking great, and working like a charm! Just another couple of minutes on the sander and tomorrow I'll fix them together. Hussah!

Time: Mammalian Dive Reflex.

2011-12-09T13:10:00.001Z

Testing the theory that when mammals dive into icy water, a baroreceptor in the face activates an innate reflex which lowers the pulse rate.

This is the third attempt, the first two times I couldn't keep my face in the ice, on the third try my pulse drops by 25 bpm.

It was amazing to see the theory put to the test, I didn't believe it would work until I saw it with my freezing cold eyes!

Threadbare

2011-12-09T01:03:00.001Z

An experiment where a photograph becomes threadbare in patches as time wears away at it. Image courtesy of Dundee Public Library 2003.

This is the way we mark the days.

2011-12-06T22:39:00.001Z

201 Days by Katie Lewis,

"The work alludes to the body in certain pieces, through the text or a particular material, but the reference remains abstracted. By abstracting and codifying the work, I want to evoke a sense of the passing of time, accumulation of information, presence and absence, chaos and order, control and loss of control and the possibility of the system collapsing upon itself or reaching a breaking point."

I love this and I want to recreate it in a processing sketch, using data from my pulse oximeter & internet time.

Mapping Time.

2011-12-06T22:32:00.001Z

Infographics of yore, Here, Lorenz Faust's genealogical tree lists Saxon rulers on the joints of a hand, and an early drawing by the painter and poet Francis Picabia (1919).

http://www.fastcompany.com/pics/infographics-day-how-weve-mapped-time-through-ages#10

Open Source Processing.

2011-12-06T22:10:00.001Z

Sharing and showing off on OpenProcessing.org, it's easy to upload and great to check up on what other people are doing.

Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming sketches on the subject of time!

http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=47568

Like clockwork

2011-12-05T23:05:00.001Z

Today I got it working, not that I had any niggling doubts of course, but I'm always scared that it will not work!

So the clockwork mechanism from my treasured (if grubby and old-fashioned) alarm clock, has been butchered and it now turns a screw thread perfectly, which raises a secretly concealed object!

Some better photos tomorrow, hopefully along with some additions.

The Time Being

2011-12-05T22:50:00.001Z

I bought a finger pulse oximeter (something usually used in hospitals to monitor pulse and percentage of oxygenated blood) as I am still very interested in 'The Time Being' how the human mind and body can control a timeline all of its own. Humans are mortal, we have a ticking time-bomb in the shape of a heart, and one day it will kill us.

I want to relate this back to the internet though too, what is the lifepan of the internet? And as we are spending ever increasing amounts of time on the internet, how does it's time control us?

Making digital beautiful

2011-12-05T22:38:00.001Z

Forgive the incidental Arduino, It is for quick power only (I have abandoned microcontrollers for this project).

I plan on making a delicate seedling from textile for this project, and couldn't pass on the opportunity to use a 'warm LED' to highlight the bud in the centre. I'm not going to go overboard with visible tech, but I can't go cold turkey!

Infographics.

2011-12-05T22:17:00.001Z

http://www.good.is/infographics
On the topic of internet time I am taking another route.

It is something I hate. The fact we are stuffing the internet with noise constantly. Ever character I type is not real, but it is being recorded. Deep down in the depths of a basement server somewhere my actions are etched in ones and noughts. This sort of thing keeps me awake at night.

Yet, it is an incredibly fascinating, confusing and complex space for your mind to inhabit. How can time exist in this transient and invisible land? But everything consumed by it is marked and archived, the internet has a memory sharper and larger than any living being.
It's timeline of course is not linear, ancient knowledge can be summoned in milliseconds, and time can appear to move faster than 'real-time'.

How does the internet age? is it immortal?

As I have a new challenge to learn more about processing, and to push my boundaries - I intend to find out.

Spinning on the lathe.

2011-12-05T21:18:00.001Z

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<>I love to learn new practical skills, and this project has given me the perfect excuse to get back in the workshop. I've never used the lathe, and really don't know how I've survived without it. It can instantly transforma rough offcut of wood into a beautifully smooth and even form, almost effortlessly.<>

One. The hollowed block is roughly rounded, with corners chamfered. A top and a bottom are added to allow ease of tunring on the lathe.

Two. The lathe is set up, and a rough cylinder is formed.

Three. After a series of passes on the lathe the cyclinder is becoming more accurate. Sandpaper is used to remove larger marks and to smooth the grain.

Four. The top and bottom are removed to reveal a hollow cylinder.

Your Invitation.

2011-12-05T21:05:00.001Z

My most recent project is a live client brief. My task is to create a beautiful, simple, and impressive interaction which is magical and finished to a very high standard.

This is my invitation to be creative with simple electronics, (i.e. I don't want to use a flashy arduino!) and I think this is what I do best. I am really looking forward to getting down into the workshop and playing with real materials.

No more specifics from now on, it's all a secret!

Thinking about time.

2011-12-04T13:44:00.001Z

A snippet from sketchbook on my early thoughts about our brief 'Internet Time'.

I originally wanted to explore waiting, and temporality in time and space. In the sketches below I wanted to measure humans in terms of

Round Up

2011-11-22T13:50:00.001Z

Closing Circle at MozFest

2011-11-22T13:34:00.001Z

Paper Prototyping Workshop

2011-11-20T20:01:00.001Z

2011-11-16T15:15:00.001Z

Mozilla Festival catch-up

2011-11-15T17:23:00.001Z

Well what a fantastic weekend in London at Mozilla Festival!! We sold our wares from the 'Physical App Store', held paper prototyping sessions, and embraced Media, Freedom, and the Web!

Three days to go.

2011-10-31T22:23:00.003Z

Well it's three days until the fantastic Mozilla Festival #mozfest.

Our intrepid team of 7 Product Designers will be welcoming all festival-goers into their 'Physical App Store', where they will be launching a range of four products each powered by the internet.

The range is an experience prototype; an experiment in engineering physical objects for online services. Each 'physical app' or product cycles the creation and display of media from the festival.

http://www.mozillafestival.org/
http://productdesign.dundee.ac.uk/msc/

Time as Currency

2011-10-23T19:20:00.002+01:00

Well what fortuitous timing for this film, as I am delving into time and temporality. It appears to be a classic hollywood one trick pony, but the premise is very very interesting.
I will reserve judgement until I've seen it, even though Justin Timberlake is in it!

Out 01.11.11 - spooky!

Enlightenment

2011-10-23T13:12:00.003+01:00

I was sent a link from a work collegue to Andrew Park's animations on YouTube.Through his 14-part series of 10-minute animations drawn from speeches about education, economics and science, Park has become an unlikely internet success story.

They are a fantastic way of visualising spoken content, and my interest was really sparked when I spotted this one about 21st Century Enlightenment.

Time and Temporality.

2011-09-28T10:14:00.000+01:00

On Monday we recieved a talk from Chris Speed (ECA, Edinburgh College of Art) on the foundations of time systems and the creation of space within time.

I know Chris from my Undergradute Honours project (2008/ 2009), he embraced my experimental compass, and helped a great deal with my theoretical thinking at the time.

Internet Time

2011-09-28T10:03:00.000+01:00

Our brief is 'Internet Time'.
This is exciting and confusing.
I am of the abstract sort, and my first thought is to define time in a way which is not dictated by the clock. I don't know how I am going to do this yet.
I have acquired some library books on the subject of time (see below), and already I am devouring the complex ideas about times meaning/ structure/ and future.

From Clocks to Chaos, The Rhythms of Life - Leon Glass & Michael C. Mackey - ISBN 0691084963

The Anthropology of Time, Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images - Alfed Gell - ISBN 0854968903

The Story of Time - Umberto Eco, Kristen Lippincott, E.H. Gombrich - ISBN 9781858940724

Time (key Concepts) - Barbara Adam - ISBN 9780745627786

Smoot's Ear, The Measure of Humanity - Robert Tavernor - ISBN 9780300124927

The last is a fascinating study of measurement, and it's fallacies. How the system of measuring and scale in the context of oneself is inherently inaccurate.

Processing.org

2011-09-28T09:46:00.000+01:00

I wish I had stumbled upon processing.org three years ago, it would have made my life (a life at the time, centred around basic code) a whole lot easier.

Anyway, Jon introduced us to the simple and effective coding software last week, and I've been playing around with it ever since.
It can produce beautiful and detailed graphical drawings/ interfaces, (I am currently designing the behaviour of a flock of digital birds!!) and has all the online examples and support that are needed to learn quickly and effectively.

http://processing.org/

http://www.learningprocessing.com/

Rivers and artificial nature.

2011-09-28T09:40:00.000+01:00

'A River Runs Through it' - A lecture from Dr Rebecca Wade, part of the RSGS (Royal Scottish Geographical Society) Autumn series of lectures.

The talk explored the relationship between people and the waters that run over, under and through the places we live. Rebecca Wade, an authority on urban rivers, discussed our continued dependence on the 'goods and services' provided by local and global ecosystems. More effective appreciation and valuation of these services was argued to be a key to our sustainable futures.

The lecture was centred on 'River cities' and 'River economies' and how they are key to human development. Also, Dr Wade explored how we manipulate the shape and function of rivers for our own ends - transport, trade routes, and leisure.
Dr Wade dissected 3 case studies where inner-city river sections were 'engineered' to increase the sense of community and create ownership of the area.
Without this the rivers had become 'repositories for modern life', before renovation they were forgotten, filled with debris, and an unnatractive element in the city.

In one river case study, the flow of the river was changed in an unusual way. The river was engineered using 'Pool and Riffle' techniques which would recreate meandering in a straight river, in effect making an artificial babbling brook.
Pools and riffles occur naturally in rivers with gravel or coarse sediments, but can be artificially designed so that the flow structure of the river bed alternates from areas of relatively shallow to deeper water.

Slow-tech Timekeeping

2011-09-22T11:10:00.000+01:00

First post on the new blog.
Time, social digital interaction, and the stars are the theme!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14969674

Apparently impervious to the digital age, calendars in the home may be the most low tech piece of timekeeping.